


If Winter Comes, Can Spring Be Far Behind?

by Chronicler



Series: A Glimpse [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: American History, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Porn, Bestiality, Bisexual Male Character, Biting, Bodice-Ripper, British Character, British English, Comeplay, Consensual, Forbidden, Forbidden Love, Friendship, Fur, Historical, Historical References, Historical Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Interspecies, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Interspecies Sex, Knotting, Licking, Love, M/M, Mates, Mounting, One True Pairing, Oral Sex, Original Character(s), Original Universe, POV Experimental, POV Third Person Omniscient, Pansexual Character, Porn, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Prostitution, Queer Themes, Rimming, Romance, Scent Kink, Scent Marking, Series, Size Kink, Smut, Trilogy, True Love, True Mates, Violence, Western, Wilderness, Wolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-07
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-14 21:20:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9203591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chronicler/pseuds/Chronicler
Summary: Sequel to my stories about a romance between an immigrant searching for the American Old West and a wolf: The Comfort of Wild Things, and Miles To Go Before I Sleep.Isaac is trying to be an upstanding member of the community in the world of man, but Samson is never far away. Never lets Isaac out of his sight.Not that being a respectable citizen is going too well for Isaac. The Pacífico saloon, that doubles as a brothel, is the only place in the settlement of Pine Springs where he can find work.And there are rumours about him, always rumours, whispers behind his back that become a roar.Besides, how long can we resist our true nature before its call becomes too strong?Third and final part of the trilogy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Ode to the West Wind by Percy Bysshe Shelley:
> 
> https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/45134
> 
> Again dedicated to someone special. They want love and knotting. I swear they exist.
> 
> Please see part one for picture montage. Also, it will look better if you leave my work skin on.
> 
> And this is the third part of a trilogy, the 'A Glimpse' series, so preferably read parts one and two first, please.
> 
> I was experimenting with POV again. I want to master third person omniscience, this is my second attempt. I wrote two versions of this story, trying to get it right. I was also aiming for the Southern Gothic style, like Carson McCullers, even though it isn't set in the South.
> 
> Please see the tags for warnings.
> 
> I just edited the entire thing again. Added a few lines, found some mistakes. I wonder how one ever knows when a story is finished... 
> 
> Feedback would be gratefully received, I really like comments.
> 
> ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The settlement of Pine Springs lay nestled between the Ojibwa River to its east, and the Amaranthine Mountains to its west. It had sprung up around a gold mine, and when that dried up logging took over, pine trees with their amber sap a different kind of gold.

‘More?’ Isaac asked Malena, inclining his head towards the bottle of whiskey in his hand. They sat at a table in the Pacífico Saloon, a ramshackle wooden building that still managed to be the one-street town’s barely beating heart.

‘May as well,’ she answered with a shrug, pushing her chipped tumbler towards him.

Around them, customers argued over card games and slammed down glasses.

Malena glanced over them all, making sure no one was waiting for her before she downed her drink. It burned just right.

Isaac took a gulp of his and coughed. ‘What’s in this?’ he spluttered. ‘Tastes even worse than usual.’

With a laugh Malena answered, ‘That’s genuine Red Eye whiskey, Old Foss cut this batch with cayenne pepper when it came out the still.’

A man sidled up to the table, with a week's stubble and bringing with him the stench of stale sweat. Thick soled boots and a thick, fraying jacket over his dingy blue work-clothes marked him out a lumberjack. Along with the three fingers missing from his left hand, where he’d been careless as the saw worked on a tree seventy feet tall. But others had lost their lives under it, so he counted himself lucky.

A few coins landed on the table with a metallic thud and Malena grabbed them before they rolled off onto the floorboards.

The man, Edwin Tiller, weary from desolate weeks out at the latest logging camp looked them both over, eyes grey against his leathered skin.

Malena rose, pulling her shawl around her shoulders and over her breasts, barely held in by the cotton over her corset. ‘We’d best go upstairs and –’

Edwin shook his head, looked down at Isaac. ‘Not you: him. I heard folks talking.’

Isaac shared a weary look with Malena but got to his feet, pocketing the coins she handed him. ‘Follow me,’ he said, heading past the piano no one knew how to play, through the archway into the hallway, down the corridor and out the back door of the saloon.

The ground out back was compacted mud, the outhouse slowly sinking in it, a thin wooden shack with a cross cut out of its door. Beyond that, long, well-trodden grass dotted with yellow wildflowers led to tall trees, sticky buds unfurling new leaves. And over them, the sun sunk behind treetops, the sky bleeding burgundy, the moon already out and almost full.

With a sigh of relief Edwin leaned back against the raw wooden wall, closed his eyes, and Isaac sank to his knees.

This was nothing new for Isaac, reaching out, tented cloth rough under his trembling fingers, always the thought in the back of his mind that if anyone saw they’d both get beaten, or worse. But he’d been doing this since he turned up penniless at the saloon, so maybe everyone already knew again, maybe they were just waiting, maybe –

‘ _Jesus H. Christ_ ,’ Edwin said above him as a growl cut through the air. He tucked himself away as Isaac turned to look.

A massive wolf stood at the corner of the saloon, teeth bared, head lowered and one paw raised, ready to strike. His thick, bristled fur faded from black to grey to white underneath, deep lines etched across his snout, one alert ear ragged from an old injury.

Isaac just rocked back onto his haunches. He looked up and said to the logger, ‘Don’t run. He’ll chase if you run, and you won’t stand a chance.’

Slowly, Isaac got to his feet, held out his hands, palms facing forwards as he advanced, saying ‘ _Shhh_ , Samson, I wasn’t doing anything.’

Tensing further, Samson vibrated down to his bones, and he snarled. Isaac looked like prey begging to be taken down.

‘ _Shhh_ ,’ Isaac said again, falling back to his knees and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Behind him, he heard the man scurrying away, didn’t dare turn. ‘It was nothing. I don’t know what I thought I’d be here: A sheriff? A gunslinger? Just a foolish little boy’s fantasies. I collect glasses and plates, wipe tables and swill out the outhouse, and, and, do other favours for the men who come to get drunk. But it doesn’t mean anything.’

Samson still looked poised to bite and Isaac couldn’t quite bring himself to care. ‘I see you outside, pacing the street. Looking up at the saloon windows. Did you follow my scent? Track me down like meat? Of course – course you did.’

Narrowed Amber eyes just watched Isaac, but the growling lowered to a rumble then stopped, just the huffs of Samson's breath left. And he padded forwards, teeth still bared as Isaac lowered his head and rose to all fours, let Samson mouth at his shoulders, gasped but pretended it didn’t hurt as cloth ripped and razor sharp points scratched his skin.

Blood on his tongue, but all Samson wanted was to mount his mate, get inside him, fill him up and stay there. Never leave. Never let him go.

But Isaac was pulling away, muttering as he staggered to his feet, backed off and disappeared through the door while Samson held himself back so he didn’t attack.

He scratched at the door and whined, but it didn’t open. Turning he ran into the woods: the smell of bark, leaves soft under his paws, wind ruffling his fur like fingers should be.

The next morning, Malena asked ‘Who would leave this?’ when she and Isaac found a stag laid dead on the wide front porch. Its flank was ripped open by jagged bite marks, a smear of blood along the wooden floorboards where it had been dragged.

Stumbling under its weight, they carried it to the kitchen behind the bar for the cook, Nuka, to deal with. Dumped it there, and Nuka just looked down at it, pushed his long black hair behind his ear. Didn't ask, and Isaac didn’t say a word.

Time slipped away, as it does, like the river below the cave Isaac tried not to think about and Samson had all but forgotten. ‘He still be out there,’ Malena said, looking out the window of the attic room she shared with Ellie, its bare rafters showing. Another howl cut through the air, through the answering howl of the wind and the patter of rain against the glass.

‘He’ll give up soon,’ Isaac said, taking another swig from the bottle in his hand, and lay back on the room’s one wide bed with its thin mattress, springs pushing against his shoulder blades.

‘I doubt it, he be out there every night.’ She pushed a stray lock up into her messy knot of black hair, then pulled her shawl tighter around her skinny shoulders, skin honey-brown against faded pink.

‘He won’t pine forever, he’ll go, find a new pack.’

‘Once wolves find a mate they stay with them till one of them dies. The trappers who come here told me.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

She laughed, came to sit on the edge of the bed. ‘You talk when you’re soused: I know you’ve gotten mounted even more ’n I have. What was it like?’

He took another swig of whiskey, wincing at the bitterness, a drop trickling down his jaw. ‘You don’t want to know.’

‘I do so,’ she nudged him. ‘Think you can shock me? Think anything can? Think just because I’m young there’s anything I ain’t seen? I came north up through the Barbary Coast, there ain’t _nothing_ you can’t try there.’

‘It was… better than anything on offer here…’

‘That ain’t saying much!’ she said around a laugh. ‘I’ve seen lovesick fools before, you won’t last long in these parts.’ Getting up, she fussed over her hair in the tiny mirror over the chest of drawers, oxidised black creeping in from its edges. ‘No one lasts long in a place like this, anyways. They’re rolling the logs out east now down the river, and it’ll be dead here for the summer. I’m going to go down and earn what I can, while I can.’ Another howl cut through the air. ‘Put him out of his misery, it’s bad for business. Folks think they’ll get eaten, and not in the ways they pay for.’

She made her way downstairs, while Isaac sighed and rolled out of bed. Dragged on the old jacket he'd bought cheap at the general store, that went with the yellowed shirt, patched trousers he pulled on over his long johns, and battered riding boots. Went and stood on the wide, wooden front porch with its faded balustrades, looking across the street.

At the other side of the compacted dirt road, scored with tracks from wagon wheels, Samson scrambled to his feet. Dug his claws into the mud to stop himself bounding over. Isaac looked like a deer, his fawn coloured hair tumbling down to his shoulders and the snow of his skin freckling again.

Isaac took a swig from the bottle in his hand and stared back. Made his way across the sloppy road, swaying and slipping a little in gathering puddles, and Samson rumbled deep in his throat. Stood: a sentry; a warning; a threat.

Sitting down by Samson’s side, Isaac wound his arms around his knees and bowed his head, blinking water out of his eyes. It was just drizzling, matting Samson's fur and sliding down the back of Isaac's collar, down his spine. ‘I thought you’d let me go.’

Samson stood by his side, whole body tense, rigid, waiting for a touch that didn’t come. He didn’t know how long he’d waited in the woods before he stalked around this settlement with its unnatural shapes of wood and stone. But he’d found his mate. Would always find him.

And the next night, tired of waiting, Samson pushed against the swinging doors at the front of the saloon then padded inside. Left a few gasps in his wake as patrons backed away. Claustrophobic with no obvious escape, he kept his head down, sniffed the ground, followed Isaac's scent. He’d know it anywhere: more mouth-watering than a freshly slaughtered doe; sweeter than the honeysuckles which burst over the meadows each spring; muskier than a bitch in heat. He padded up wooden stairs, less steep than mountainous outcroppings, up another flight, scratched at a door he could smell Isaac behind. Whined. Growled when Isaac opened it, pushed his way inside.

‘I didn’t think you’d come into a building like this,’ Isaac said, shutting the door behind them. ‘I know you don’t like being closed in.’

Samson snuffled at him, pushing him across the room. So fragile, vulnerable, tempting.

‘We can’t,’ Isaac said, backing away further, ‘this isn’t even my room. I just bed down wherever I can find space: Nuka lets me sleep in the kitchen, or Melina lets me sleep on the floor in here sometimes, and – _oomph._ ’

He landed on his back on the threadbare rug spread on the floorboards. His open bottle of whiskey knocked onto the ground, flooding amber over wood and the stench of it filling the air. Samson was on him right away, pushing against him with his snout, licking his face, his pale stubble, tongue wet and rough, whining as though Isaac had the secret of the universe and was keeping it hidden from him. Isaac’s slender fingers lost in thick, warm fur as Samson rubbed against him, covered Isaac with his scent so everyone would know to whom he belonged.

And before Isaac had time to think – and Samson had nothing he needed to think about – he was pulling off his clothes as Samson tried to help, ripping thin cotton with his fangs.

Swept along in the irresistible tide of being so desired, Isaac let himself be pushed onto all fours, gasping as Samson licked at his hole, the short, prickly fur of his snout pushing between Isaac’s cheeks. Face flushed he hung his head: he wasn’t clean, was barely allowed to use the bathwater in the tin tub after all the others who lived over the saloon finished – but Samson didn’t care. Scrabbling, rearing up against Isaac’s back. More scratches joining the scars littered over Isaac’s flank.

‘Just do it,’ Isaac mumbled, the pressure and weight of his groin almost painful as he spit into his hand and touched himself. It wasn’t the first time he’d been taken that day, was wet and ready. Those who worked the brothel had lotions from the big cities they let him use.

And Samson smelt it on him, tasted it, the urge to rip Isaac apart almost overwhelming. Growl desperate, he mounted him, rutted against him till he pushed inside, sank into the relief of it.

Paws against Isaac’s hips and keening forwards over his back, all Samson could do was piston into him, claim him, _mine_ , the only word that could describe how he felt, _mine, mine, mine_.

Isaac collapsed onto his elbows, his too-long hair falling over his face as he gasped. This was harder than Samson had taken him before, fast and desperate, the only sound their pants and the slap of Samson’s balls against his. The stretch of it hurt, twisted into him as he scratched at the floorboards.

But, ‘Don’t – _oh god_ – don’t let go,’ he slurred out.

He let out a strangled sob, pushed forwards across the floor, scraping his knees at Samson’s last few hard thrusts before he stopped, the scrape of his paw over Isaac’s back as he turned away, still inside him. The fur of his hind legs warm and soft against Isaac’s.

Pulsing into Isaac, warm spurts. The growing pressure pushing against Isaac inside, making his toes curl as he thrust wet into his hand. His cries too loud in the small room with its sloping ceiling.

And Samson stood, proud with his head held high and his paws firmly planted on the too-flat ground. Because he felt right, felt fulfilled as his knot swelled inside, kept his mate tied to him, caught, imprisoned, held close and still. Teaching him the lesson that he couldn’t get away.

‘I’m sorry,’ Isaac was mumbling, wet against his arm, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m –’

‘ _Puta_ ,’ Malena said from the doorway, all the breath leaving her. Rooted to the spot, lips parted, she bunched her long dress in her fist. It was strangely beautiful, seeing a man being bred like the wild dogs who roamed the streets back home begging for scraps. Isaac’s back arched downwards as he looked up at her, eyes pleading.

Samson turned his head, growled deep in his throat as his eyes narrowed. The warning clear: you’ll not take him again.

‘What the–!’ a stranger said beside Malena. Pushing the door open wide, he forced her aside, stood in the doorway, filling it, rugged clothes still dusty from his ride into town.

Isaac buried his face in his arms on the floor and for a moment there was silence, everything still as seconds ticked away.

‘What kind of place is this! Full of perverts and whores, I should –’ the man shouted, and with a snarl Samson pulled himself free, the big weight of his knot stretching Isaac's hole wide around it, and Isaac gasped out, eyes wide. Samson’s seed poured down his thighs.

Samson leapt for the door just as Malena slammed it shut and turned the lock, backing away from the thud of Samson rising up and hitting his forepaws against it.

Isaac had flopped onto his side, and his eyes met Samson’s when he turned, the fire in them managing to be both untamed and intent.

With a groan, Isaac dragged himself to his knees, shrinking back as Samson lapped at his hole, his thighs. ‘No,’ he said, pulling away and finding his ripped clothes, dragging them on as Samson lapped at himself then stalked around the room, paced, his growl a dull rumble and the air filled with the intensity of him.

Stumbling to the drawers Isaac rooted through them, found the spare key.

He paused with it in his hands. ‘I’m going to let us out, but don’t – don’t chase after them. Malena doesn’t care what we do. She says love is rarer than gold and I shouldn’t throw it away so easily. Maybe they won’t even tell anyone, maybe –’

Samson advanced on him, the lines cut in his snout stark and the pink of his gums showing.

‘All right, all right,’ and Isaac unlocked the door, before Samson bounded down the stairs.

Isaac followed.

But it was quiet down in the saloon when they passed it, too quiet. And Isaac gripped the fur of Samson’s neck as they headed down the corridor.

Opening the back door, Isaac was faced with the man from upstairs and the townspeople, such as they were: Martha from the bank, dressed in the suit no one bothered to question anymore; McMurdock from the general store, rumoured to be the son of an escaped slave, his one eye dark as he watched; Isom, who passed for the doctor and dentist, four feet tall even with his bowler hat, as always, perched on his head; Emil who stood in as sheriff, just back from the army and scarred inside and out; young William Mossman who failed at the Pony Express and slinked back to live off his widowed mother; Malena and Ellie clinging together, their frayed dresses dragging in the mud; a handful of lumberjacks and homesteaders who stood back, an audience hoping for tragedy.

Billy had a rope in his hand, and Emil clasped his shotgun, his sandy hair catching the moonlight and the glow from the burning torches clasped by a few of the townsfolk.

‘What you did was unnatural!’ the stranger yelled. Isaac looked behind himself, but more of the regulars had come to stand in the hallway. Filling it with their hard bodies and stern looks.

As Samson padded past him with a low growl Isaac screamed back, ‘Yes? And you were going in there to fuck her! Pay for her body. You think she wants that? Think we ever want that? Think you’re any better than me? Because you’re not!’

‘I’d heard about you.’ He stepped forwards, his black stubble stark against his skin, his hair starting to curl at the ends beneath his hat. Too long on the trail, too long a stretch between towns, and the man, Preston, bounty hunter and erstwhile preacher, had had enough. ‘Even before I saw you down on the ground like an animal. Heard you’re a sodomite, will commit any sin for a few coins. But it doesn’t take money, does it?’ His hand shook as he pointed his tarnished silver pistol at Isaac. ‘You can’t go around doing things that that, you can’t –’

After that, everything happened too fast for anyone present to recall afterwards in which order events occurred. Had anyone ever spoke of it, which they didn’t. The whole incident became a silent shame hanging over Pine Springs till it crumbled into a ghost town and the few who lived there wandered away and lost track of each other. It was never even remembered enough to appear on any map. And everyone who had called it home would have agreed that was for the best.

The gun went off, Samson lept, someone screamed, and Preston ended up on his back, Samson tearing at his throat, blood bathing his tongue.

A fist collided with Isaac’s jaw and the world stuttered, stuttered as Samson yelped and fire flashed, Malena yelling, ‘Go! Just go!’

Acutely aware of Isaac stumbling at his side, Samson ran towards the trees, ran from the world of man.

Leaves and twigs crunching under their feet, their paws, branches clutching at them, scratching, they headed into the darkness, stars shattered across the blackness and the moon fat and full.

Behind them, yelling and the thud of feet. And even further back, in the shadow of the saloon, desperate hands wadding cloth to stop the flow of blood pulsing from Preston’s jugular. Isom would stitch him up, but for the rest of his life each sound Earl Preston uttered came with the rasp of pained breath, and he would have to consider each word very very carefully.

But that night, Isaac and Samson ran. Ran till the sounds behind them faded away to nothing.

When, eventually, Isaac collapsed to the ground of moss and clover, Samson stood over him, whined as he licked the blood from Isaac’s jaw and running down his neck from where the bullet had nicked his ear.

‘It’s all right – it’s all right,’ Isaac whispered as he dug out his tatty old handkerchief and wiped away the blood staining Samson’s snout, didn’t think about Samson’s long tongue snaking out and licking away the tear of smooth pink flesh hanging from his fur.

His ragged panting slowing to laboured then calm breaths, Isaac asked, ‘Can you keep going? Cheng – he owns the saloon – he has a cabin near here, we can stop there till it’s dark again. He stores moonshine there and hauls stolen from the new railroad – only Malena and Nuka know of it, she won’t betray us and he hates the townsfolk.’

They slept that night, huddled together on the bare floorboards of the cabin, surrounded by crates with a fusty old moth-eaten blanket pulled over them.

The next morning, they set out walking, Isaac stuffing any provisions he could find in the cabin into a pack he slung over his shoulder. ‘West?’ he asked Samson, who looked up at him, expression quizzical. ‘All right, west it is.’

And time, as it does, rushed them along. Through the mountain pass, through the forests. Through abandoned shacks, caves, hollows where they huddled together. Isaac shook at first as the cravings seized him, but, with time, it passed. They watched the natives from a distance, Isaac learning to track, to build shelters. They stopped by settlements: ‘Wait here,’ Isaac would tell Samson. And, though he was never gone long, afterwards Samson kept an even closer eye on him.

Summer spread out before them as they travelled. ‘See how tough I’m getting,’ Isaac said with a grin when he jumped down from the branches of a tree with eggs from a nest, battered hat falling into the mud.

‘Maybe winter will be all right,’ he said as they ate them by a fire under the stars, Samson stretched out beside him. ‘We can hole up somewhere, you can hunt, I can keep us warm.’

Samson licked egg yolk from Isaac’s fingers, the calm of his voice soothing.

They kept going, hiking through hard terrain till they hit the coast and scrambled down to the sea, a different ocean than had brought Isaac to these shores.

‘Look at it!’ he said, arms spread wide.

The dawn sky was streaked red and orange, clouds floating in it like islands, and it bled into a sea that reflected it back till the whole work blushed scarlet.

It was all a palette of yellows and greys to Samson, but he looked up, watched Isaac, skin brown as a nut and hair streaked yellow by the sun.

He looked so full of life, and he laughed while Samson howled and wagged his tail, waves crashing against pebbled sand, the cliffs behind them and jagged rocks rising out of the sea hemming them in. Shocked seagulls took to the sky, outlined white against the sun as they shrieked.

They found a cave, Samson was good at that, brine heavy in the air. He pissed against the entrance to mark it theirs, and Isaac did too, knowing to do it but not understanding why.

‘I won’t ever leave you again,’ Isaac murmured later, and Samson may not have understood the words but he knew what they meant.

He stood, stones under his paws while Isaac lay beneath him, stroked the unsheathed length of him, always such an angry red when engorged. Aroused, already he pumped out spurts of pale liquid. It fell down onto Isaac where he stroked himself, made his flesh wet and sticky, and he gasped, shuffled along the ground, his well-worn clothes open, shirt scrunching up under his shoulders.

‘Looks so good,’ he murmured, before he took Samson into his mouth, just the head filling it.

Samson shuffled his paws on the rough ground, steadied himself. It was strange, the pleasure of stillness, not thrusting, wet warmth as Isaac mouthed at him. Salty as the air against Isaac’s tongue.

Isaac lay back, touched his chest, fingers wet as he pinched and scratched his nipples, as he worked himself open with oil he’d pocketed at the last township, still intermittently reaching up to stroke Samson over him, to cup his heavy balls, Samson panting. Isaac pulsed wet onto his own belly.

When Samson couldn’t take it any more, he pushed Isaac onto his hands and knees, pushed inside him, moans echoing off stone walls, among his gasps of ‘ _There_ ’ and ‘ _More’,_ always more. Stayed tied to him as long as he could, Isaac reaching back and holding him in place. As if he’d leave, as if there was anywhere else he wanted to be.

Afterwards, he licked them both clean, and lay curled around Isaac in front of the fire he’d grown accustomed to. ‘You should sleep,’ Isaac murmured, fingers dug into damp fur at the thick scruff of Samson’s neck and voice slurring, ‘we’ll hear anyone who comes, we’ll be all right, we’ll…’

And they stayed by the coast, following it south for more temperate climes, hunting and fishing and pleasuring each other till the end of time.

Or until one day, years hence, when Samson lay down in the sand and didn’t rise again.

And, really, isn’t that forever?

**_T_ _he End_ **


End file.
